A pizza fanatic who happened to be a chef at the world famous Leela Palace Hotel in Bangalore India. In fact there were three chefs who I spent time with. Lots of time. We made a couple of pizzas, one was great the other was, well, a learning experience. Chef Man (my American nickname for him) asked non-stop questions about pizza. He was great to be around. He brought the other two chefs around because he could not believe someone knew more about pizza than he did. They went nuts with the information I shared and the more I shared, the more they listened.

We shared each other's recipe but my sense is they will quickly switch to the Pizza Raquel formula as their eyes opened with a sense of what was possible after the first bite of my beloved pizza. Their pizza recipe contains butter of all things and quickly went downhill from there. They were so appreciative of a true NY style recipe.

Chef Man was so inquizzative about making pizza we eventually migrated to the topic of preferment. Sure enough, within minutes Chef man got the ingredients together and we made the first known Bangalore preferment on record. Our first effort failed miserably as the ants were fans of the mixture as well and swarmed our bowl of batter. Our second effort produced bubbles in no time and I'm sure Chef Man will be making a pie with it very soon. I hope he joins the forum and posts pictures.

Attached are a few pictures of the time we had. I forgot to bring my camera when the pizza came out of the oven but it was a blast to innovate with parchment paper as the peel was too small.

Chef Man is shown mixing his first NY style dough. The oven was better suited to bake bread as it had a gas exhaust pipe which shot fire out it's tip. The result was a really hot ceiling but a cold floor. Not a good combination for pizza. The last picture is of the wonderful group of guys who made my trip a complete success.